


Persistence Pays

by samescenes



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 17:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2236857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samescenes/pseuds/samescenes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are both very lonesome creatures indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persistence Pays

“The midnight train is whining low," she sings, dancing a circle around her broom. The invisible string section is building, and she opens her arms, puffs up her chest, and goes for the high note. "I'm so lonesome I could -”

Ned coughs.

The string section stops mid-note, and Olive freezes with her arms thrown wide and her mouth gaping. 

“Could you, ah, not?” he says, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, hands in his pockets. “Not that I want to stifle your freedom of expression, you’re free to express whatever you want, however you want, but I’d prefer if you didn’t express it that way.”

He smiles at her, the right side of his mouth tilted up in that little half-smile he has. 

Olive blinks. 

“My mother used to sing,” he says finally, and turns back into the kitchen. He pulls the rolling pin from the pouch in his apron, and beats the dough with something that might have been anger, if it was anyone else but Ned.

He’s never spoken about his mother in front of her before. Olive stands there, shocked, and by the time she starts after him, the moment’s gone.

She goes back to sweeping.

***

She gets to the Pie Hole at the same time as Ned the next morning.

“Olive,” he says, holding the door open for her as she walks in. “You know you don’t have to be here until nine.”

“Oh, I hadn’t noticed I was a little early,” she says, airily. 

“Olive. It’s seven-thirty.”

“Well, the earlier I get here, the earlier I can go home, hey boss?” She picks up the rag she uses to clean the espresso machine.

That night, she doesn’t leave until Ned does.

***

“This is awkward, right? I mean, you don’t talk and I don’t talk, and we’re both in the same room. Not talking.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, of course you don’t, because we’re talking about not talking. You ignore things until they go away. Well, I’m not going away, mister.”

“Yeah. I’m starting to get that.”

***

She muscles her way into his apartment with a cunning mix of diversionary tactics and the ability to squeeze into small spaces.

She notes the two single beds in the bedroom. It looks like he didn’t even sleep in the same bed as Chuck.

“You poor, lonely man,” she says, and he has to stoop quite low for her to clutch his head to her bosom, but she makes it work.

***

The third night in a row she brings pie to his door, he lets her in without a struggle. They sit down on his improbably long couch, Digby on one side of her, and Ned on the other.

“If you need space,” she starts, but Ned interrupts.

“Space is all I’ve had,” he says, and she can feel the heat of his skin when their legs press together.


End file.
